Nice Work Review of Books: Obsession

Jonathan Kellerman’s most recent mystery thriller about Milo the cop and Alex the Pediatric Psychiatrist did the trick. Compulsion (reviewed elsewhere in these pages) was a “tale well calculated to keep you in… suspense!” So I lifted the embargo on Milo Sturgis/Alex Delaware potboilers imposed after reading the over-the-top sadistic conclusion of Kellerman’s 2005 outing, Rage. Not that the child abuser of that novel didn’t deserve what he got, but, geez, Jonathan, give your readers a break, willya? We didn’t do it!

Anyhow, I went back one to his second-to-last Milo/Alex thriller, Obsession— read it as an eBook on my lil Palm PDA — and am happy to report it’s a heapin’ helpin’ of what the audience paid for:

The Kellerman Tour of L.A. begins thus:

“Not a whodunit,” said Milo. “A did-it-even-happen?”

I said, “You think it’s a waste of time.”

“Don’t you?”

I shrugged. We both drank.

That’s the stuff! And it ends with Milo addressing a stunned couple of paramedics:

In between Milo and Alex talk to lots of Angelinos and it’s this dialogue that keeps bringing me back to Mr. K. That ear for how people actually speak. A cop asks Milo’s advice on how to proceed on a case. He answers, “It was me, I’d keep it basic.”

I love that “It was me” for “If it were me.” That’s what Milo would really say. I also like the withering Chandleresque wordplay, like the description of a thug’s “heavy black mustache, right-angled down to his chin like a croquet wicket.”

Obsession features more murder than I, for one, experience in a normal week, but less than in your usual serial killer novel and it ends with a burst of rat-a-tat action that falls, thank goshness, way short of the I Spit On Your Grave excess of Rage. So this happy reader set his PDA down on the bedstand with a sweet smile, turned off the light, and drifted into a night of only mildly scarring nightmares. FOUR STARS and a CUP OF JOE!! ☆✬✰✪☕